For princesses who don't mind playing a little rough with the boys!

Christmas is Coming! Is Your Home Ready?

It’s that time of year, and I wish I could tell you that I love it, I really do. I used to! But, I work in retail, so my love for holidays of any kind has been greatly reduced.

It doesn’t help that we haven’t had any snow yet, it’s been extremely mild here in Southern Ontario… which I love, but that might be why I’m looking forward to it even less… the weather isn’t even welcoming the holiday! I know as the weeks go by, I will be more “jolly” and maybe I’ll even sing along with the Christmas music instead of glaring at the speakers or anyone humming along… lol!

However, I do have some handy tips for my fellow moms out there:

Tip #1

Seeing that there will be a certain influx of stuff into the kids’ rooms with Christmas, it’s time for “out with the old”.

About this time of year, we do a major overhaul of the boys’ rooms, and nothing is left untouched. Sets are put back together, Lego is collected and stored in it’s home, books are picked through an reorganized, and the cheap McDonald’s, dollar store and restaurant toys are all pitched!

Tyler is pretty organized with his room, but he remembers the pain of this process all too well. He has sympathy for his younger brother!

Shelves get dusted and wiped, the furniture is moved around and everything is vacuumed.

I honestly don’t know what the problem is, they love their rooms SOOO much more when I am done! Because for a short time, they can find everything!

Tip #2

I honestly don’t remember where I saw this tip… I’m sure it was before Pinterest, but I’ve used it ever since I saw it.

The artwork and projects that your kids bring home from school… what do you do with all of it? You could store it in a Rubbermaid tote, or under their bed (is there room, with all of the other stuff?) Keeping it all is impossible. We all know this.

I take pictures of it. With a camera. Then I recycle it. The boys know that this is my way of keeping it forever, without actually, you know, keeping it forever. I’d much rather have a digital copy of it than stacks of construction paper and posterboard!

This year, I took it one step further. Both boys have iPads now, so I created a new photo album in iCloud photos, and invited my youngest son to join it. I uploaded, cropped and brightened all of the pictures I took of his artwork. He can access it whenever he likes, and if he doesn’t want them anymore later on down the road, it’s his choice if he wants to delete them (I still have the originals on my hard drive, to be transferred to an external backup drive later).

And that’s how we begin our home preparations for Christmas… what helps your family get organized for the holidays?

Would it help to let them pick out a few favourites to keep? Caleb had one that he wants me to frame for him 🙂 or you could get them a scrapbook for their favourites, and maybe take photos of everything else?

I still have some of my kids artwork (and the youngest is now 35!). One thing I did every year with my boys was to have them pick out some of their old, but in good condition toys that they no longer play with and donate them. It teaches them to share and help others, and also helps keep down the clutter.